COUNT THE FEATHERS

Wow. When I heard Sarah Palin was resigning as governor I was thrilled. With her pep, bounce, her bubbly feminine ways, this gal could wheedle her way into ... I don't want to say it out loud, I'll say it in a whisper ... into winning an election. She could construct, connive, instinctively find a bridge, a route to the next group of up-and-coming conservatives who want to back-space/erase/ eradicate what's new, and revive all the old ideas of what Americans want to be and do.

Oh please ... I pray ... to you, to the Gods in Heaven, to anyone who'll listen ... give SP another venue ... She is a NAME and that's hard to get, it doesn't happen easily but she's a NAME and a NAME has power.

We know who she is. So give her a TV show. Offer her a double big fat advance on a book. Please, SP, make your name even bigger -- get your vigorous down-to- earth, easy-talking self into galvanizing all the other gals who want to turn back the clock -- make 'em happy. Have talk fests, protest porn or prostitution, promote daily workouts building better bodies and souls, but keep out of government and politics and what our President is doing.

(Yes.. I keep coming back to that. I don't understand all the issues that he is handling right now but the man we so joyously elected because of what he is, what he says, his bearing, his ideas ... I trust. If he's making a mistake he'll rectify it.)

I wrote a post "Green Olives" about the Count the Feathers in a Turkey contest I won.

Count the jackets ... how many? Twenty plus? Does that include the different shades in red, white and blue? I'm not a fashion nut. I just observe. I know one picks the clothes one wears because one wants to make the impression the color, the style conveys.

What about counting Hillary Clinton's pantsuits? Only once did I note the same suit worn twice, and that's because it was an elegant black velvet with a ivory trim around the high collar -- handsome and flattering. She looks sad, tight these days. Is it the state of the world -- Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan..Iran -- how to handle whom, where, and do what? Or is it the state of her life? Hillary taught us by her demeanor, not to peer, wonder and imagine. But with the smiling, laughing and the loving exchange between her and Bill, charade or not, it was perfectly, believably played. They are a good couple, they interact, So I go along with what she/they/the Clintons want us to believe.

Not Palin. Write a book, SP! Travel! Be a celebrity. It's not what you wore, it's your ideas. Please don't be a leader.

If in fact Sarah Palin resurrects herself from the mess she made when she presented us with an improvised explanation of why she's resigning her post as governor -- oh my -- when she gives her next speech let's give her a ton of love, and applaud till we drown her out and shut her up.

DAY OFF IS ON

The sun is out ...

Our hats are on ...

We're heading ...

For the park ...

The fountain ...

The zoo ...

Say hello to some favorite statues ...

Maybe picnic.

Have a busy Saturday ...

Doing nothing ... Just walking, talking ...

FINGERNAIL PHASES

I bit them. I wore scarlet red nail polish,. I peeled off the polish. I bit them.

I resolved not to bite them, and bit them. I bought a fancy nail file, and cuticle scissors, and shaped them. I bought myself a pale pink nail polish. I applied it. The next day, I peeled it off.

I had a manicure at a beauty salon. I didn't enjoy trying to make conversation with the manicurist. The way she filed my nails hurt. Nevertheless, I made a second appointment. The next day, my finger was fevered and painful. I canceled my appointment, and never went back.

I bought fake nails and glued them on. Hated them.

I went with D an actress friend to a fingernails place. We each paid $60.00 for a set of fake nails. Mine were lovely for about a week. When D broke a nail, I went back with her to the salon, and watched very carefully as a new nail was created.

Afterwards we had cocktails. The chic things we chatted about made me uneasy. D's elegant expensive exclusive look, made me feel put together in my Filene's bargain wardrobe.

(Fingernails went with gadding about, and I was maybe 30% committed to gadding about. I didn't know what my next project was, and while JC was coming up up up in the world, I had a feeling I was teetering down down.)

At a beauty supply shop I bought fake nails powder, the two liquids that are needed to harden the powder, a roll of nail shaper papers, and a small electric nail filer (like a tiny power drill). Also application brushes and tweezers for removing the shapers.

Then, slowly, carefully, I created a thumbnail. And practiced, and practiced, till I could make ten professional looking nails.

They looked good. But within a week my fake nails began to develop greenish moons at the cuticles. By the middle of the following week, the whole nail was green.

Even so, though it was time consuming, I kept my unnatural nails perfectly manicured.

A filmmaker phoned. He'd seen me dance my "Four Seasons" solo and said he loved it. He suggested a lunch meeting, saying,"There's something important I want to discuss with you."

I wore my ankle-length black jeans skirt, a studded black jeans jacket, and a purple (for good luck) shirt. With my three favorite Liz T rings, (see my post "Elizabeth Taylor Socks Syndrome"), and freshly fake nails, I felt glamorous. Entering the crowded chic restaurant, I was delighted to notice people noticing me.

After we ordered, he asked what I was doing. Though I was in the doldrums, between projects, between forkfuls of salad, hoping he'd interrupt and tell me what the important something was, I described "Zinnia," a two character play I'd been writing.

Finally, he put down his fork, and said, "The head of PBS and I would like you to be the fund-raiser for our new dance film foundation ..." and mentioned yearly salary, my own office, my own secretary ...

The conversation became ah ... oh ... yes ... mm ... How I got home, what I said escapes me. Did I turn him down gracefully? Probably not. I've never heard from him again.

What I do remember is ... removing the fake fingernails, dumping the powder, the liquids, roll of shapers, and hanging the black jean skirt and jacket in my closet where I keep clothes I'll probably never wear again.

Was it the next day, or two days later that I was back in my studio ...no rings, on my fingers, no bells on my toes. I had music -- Mahler's Tenth. I had "Zinnia," I was me again, unadorned, self propelled -- with a project I loved working on.

WHO IS EPLEY

Why is this guy becoming someone I have to contend with every day? Along with MJ being turned into the media's new Anna Nicole Toy, And the health care war, the Ask Don't Tell issues mixed into a pudding with the S. Carolina Gov's guilty-boy ramblings.

He's Japanese specialist, Nakayama M. Epley. A medical person who had made a series of simple exercises you do if you "BPPV." (A benign inner ear problem that creates light-headedness, which comes and goes.)

Yes it's "Vertigo." But I'm not using medical terms today. I'm trying to untie the knots that I seem to have been tying around myself.

A million years ago this past March, I wrote a post 'GOING TO THE DOC" and mentioned the 125 physical therapy exercises I had to do in order to re-learn how to walk.

I stated loudly -- I don't want anyone telling me what I can do, should do. Shouldn't do. Or give me permission about anything.

Whoops -- (I didn't realize till I re-read the post myself just now). I refer to "water" in my left ear. But a note I made for myself in April of 2008, clearly refers to water in my right ear. So it's moved, from ear to ear.

Last week I saw Mike (my doctor) and based on his exam, Dr. Em had herself diagnosed correctly . It's a temporary condition -- not serious, not anything to do with tumor, cancer, stroke or any other bad stuff. Mike said he'd heard there was a physical therapy treatment for it. Something new. Did I want him to check it out? I said no.

At home, having seen a reference to "new physical therapy treatment," and pictures of it, I printed out the Epley "maneuver" exercises. Look to the left -- don't they look simple? Probably these exercises help the inner ear repair itself.

Then I found a YouTube film that shows you what to do. IF you know which is the "affected" ear. Want to try it? Just click EPLEY MANEUVER.

What point am I making? Right now JC is in his office, laboring over making me a simplified copy of what's in the Merck Manual. There are 5 variations on YouTube. I'VE TRIED THEM. There's even a test you can do to figure out which of your ears is affected. I DID THE TEST. IT IS BOTH EARS.

I have 3 different ways of doing the Epley typed out. Plus the new version JC typed out making it sound ... Simpler? Slightly different? I don't know what to do, unless I compare all the versions.

Dr. Em is thinking right here as you read this -- S T O P. The shoe doesn't fit. The exercise DOES NOT work for you! Do your nightly dancing, and handle the dizzy feeling you get when you jump (there are jumps in the dance) by changing the jump. For the time being. that's what I'm going to do.

Leave it alone, says Dr. Em. And she's the one I obey.